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Common Reporting Tools in Oracle

Oracle Reports: Fixed format reports delivered with the 11i release were built on this tool. This is the most used tool for reporting on Oracle Applications. Most of reports customizations are built with this tool. Once customized the output of the report can be in Excel (Not group By Report), word, Acrobat documents or text format.

Oracle Discoverer: is an intuitive tool for creating reports and performing on-line analysis. Discoverer uses the EUL (End User Layer), a meta data definition, which hides the complexity of the database from the end user and provides easy to use wizards for creating reports to suit individual needs. The flexibility of this tool allows the user to create cross tab reports that perform like pivot tables in Excel.

Oracle XML Publisher: is a new Oracle tool for reporting. It enables users to utilize a familiar desktop tool, like MS Word or MS Excel, to create and maintain their own report. At runtime, XML Publisher merges the custom templates with the concurrent request extracts data to generate output in RTF, PDF, HTML and EXCEL.

RXi Report: (Variable reports) – variable format reports delivered with the E-Business 11i. With this tool a user has the ability to print the same report with multiple layouts. The user can also choose which columns he requires on a particular report. This tool is most used on Oracle Financials Applications.

FSG Reports (Financial Statement Generator): is a powerful report building tool for Oracle General Ledger. Some of benefits of using this tool are that a user can generate financial reports, and schedule reports to run automatically. The only drawback of this tool is that it is only available for the general ledger responsibility and can be used to see only financial account balances.

Business Intelligence System (BI): is a set of tools to provide high level information for the managers (decision makers) to run their business such as the profitability of a particular business unit. The information this tool provides helps managers to take the right decision with the daily data that is uploaded on their systems

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Difference Between Lexical and Bind Variable

Bind references are used to replace a single value in SQL or PL/SQL. Specifically, bind references may be used to replace expressions in SELECT, WHERE, GROUP BY, ORDER BY, HAVING,CONNECT BY, and START WITH clauses of queries. Binds may not be referenced in the FROM clause.
An example is:
SELECT Col1,Col2
FROM XX_table
WHERE Col1 = :P_col1

Lexical references are placeholders for text that you embed in a SELECT statement. You can use lexical references to replace the clauses appearing after SELECT, FROM, WHERE, GROUP BY , ORDER BY , HAVING, CONNECT BY, and START WITH. You cannot make lexical references in PL/SQL. Before you reference a lexical parameter in a query you must have predefined the parameter and given it an initial value.
An example is:
SELECT Col1,Col2
FROM &ATABLE

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Create Trace File for Concurrent Program

If your program is taking time to complete, then the best way to know what is causing the problem is by creating a trace file.

Navigation:
System Administrator(R) –> Concurrent –> Program –> Define

Query for the concurrent program and check enable trace button.

Now when the concurrent program is executed the trace file is created in the udump directory. The path of udump directory can be found by executing following query.
select * from v$parameter
where name like ‘%user_dump_dest%’


The trace file can be converted to a readable format by running a tkprof command over the trace file.
Syntax:

tkprof [trace_file_name] [new_file_name]

Understanding TKPROF
The TKPROF program can be used to format the contents of the trace file and convert it into a readable output file.
TKPROF can also be used to generate Explain Plan for the queries.
I will create a seperate post to discuss various options available with TKPROF.
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Password Policy and profile options

On apps there are a lot of profile options that are useful in making apps passwords difficult to guess, the profiles are

1-Signon password failure limit
2-Signon Password Length
3-Signon Password No Reuse
4-Signon Password Hard to Guess

For the first one it means how many time can I try to access the system using wrong password. It is recommended to change this value to 3. The default value is null.

The second one to allow minimum password length. The default value is 5, it is recommended to make it 6 or 7.

The 3rd profile is for not allowing using same password again for specified number of days.

The default value for 4th profile option is No. Following are the password rules if the value is set to Yes
1) The password contains at least one letter and at least one number.
2) The password does not contain the username.
3) The password does not contain consecutively repeating characters.

Reference: Metalink Note 362663.1

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Usuage of PL/SQL Wrap Utility

The PL/SQL Wrap Utility – Hide source code in Oracle

A company has a code(Package, Procedure, Function etc) with all the proprietary information and logic in it. If this information is leaked out in the market then the competitors can take advantage of it and this can affect the business. One of the way to deal with this is to hide the code from others.
This can be achieved using oracle’s WRAP utility. The advantage of WRAP utility is that this converts the source code into some language that is not understood but the code can still be compiled like any other source code.
Using Wrap is very simple. In the bin directory of Oracle Home, the wrap utility is installed. The file name could be WRAP.exe or WRAP80.exe depending on the oracle version installed.
Syntax

 C:orantBIN>wrap.exe iname=[inputfilename] oname=[outputfilename]

e.g.
 C:orantBIN>wrap.exe iname=wrap_test.sql oname=wrap_test.plb

An example of using WRAP

Create a sample procedure wrap_test using following code

CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE wrap_test
IS
BEGIN
 dbms_output.put_line(‘Wrap test complete’);
END;
/
then call the wrap utility using following
wrap.exe iname=wrap_test.sql oname=wrap_test.plb

Content of new file wrap_test.plb
CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE wrap_test wrapped
a000000
b2
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
7
4f 8d
LPjE3qKQyH/yQRCK4+efvSyST50wg5nnm7+fMr2ywFznKMB04yhSssvum3SLwMAy/tKGBvVS
m7JK/iiyveeysx0GMCyuJOqygaVR2+EC8XcG0wJd5GisbnfxwzIu9tHqJB/2OabWTW+0
/

It is very clear from this that the new code is not readable and so is completely hidden from others.
Drop your procedure(if already created) and recreate using the the new file wrap_test.plb which can be compiled as any other package. Important point here is that the source code will be hidden and cannot be read.
Another important point to remember is that once wrapped, a code cannot be unwrapped.

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